PERFECTION, WITH A SIDE ORDER OF BLOOD
by Zevlin
Summary: Elizabeth Masen's husband died seventeen years ago but she still sees him through her son. This is her forced goodbye


_A/N: This poem was not written for this purpose but it fits and it's the best I've ever written so why not share. Hope you understand it._

**PERFECTION, WITH A SIDE ORDER OF BLOOD**

Look at this picture and tell me what you see.

His smile, that bright eyed, melting seduction stationed upon a flawless wife.

A stand still picture meaning nothing.

Pose and fake for the camera.

Perfection really isn't that pretty is it, when you know all their secrets.

She doesn't cry and he doesn't shout.

The perfect trophy wife, his high school sweetheart.

What he doesn't tell is the cookie he had on the side.

The baby she's had to raise on her own for seventeen years.

Picture perfect couple.

What they don't tell would fill an entire archive.

For the first time he's home on his own will.

It's her birthday but he's forgotten yet again.

Her son hands her a gift wrapped present and a light kiss on the cheek,

He won't be home soon tonight.

His only escape when his father's home.

Leave her with the man she refused to leave.

She sets the camera on the stand and pulls him to his feet.

A pretty picture they make, when the sun caresses the sea.

His arm circles her thin waist and just for those seconds

As he fakes a smile for the camera,

She allows herself to remember what it was like,

When he loved her.

Perfection really isn't that pretty is it, when you know all their secrets.

She waited all night for him to say the words she needed.

It never came.

Strawberry blooms and perfect red roses were all she had when he left that morning.

Husband only in name.

She locked her bedroom door and stared at the mirror,

Looking for the woman she had been.

All she saw were unshed tears and a dimmed out light.

"Mom?"

The knock on the door startled her.

She saw her son enter through the mirror.

A reflection of the seventeen year old man she had fallen in love with.

He hesitated as he lifted his arm for her to see.

Her husband's perfect clone was dripping blood onto her pure white carpet.

Crimson darkness, that glistened from the knife he held.

"I think he's dead,"

She rushed to him as he slumped against the door, eyes glazed over and cold.

A mother she was, she took the knife before she rushed to the kitchen.

Vanilla coffee and blueberry jam, with a side of blood as her morning after present.

Tiles smeared with sweet scented blood of a husband who,

Even in dying,

Was her perfection.

She knelt towards him, phone in hand when it was gently removed from her hands.

"Let him die."

Perfection really isn't that pretty is it, when you know all their secrets.

A silent plea in her eyes to a son she had raised as her own all her life.

Nothing could change that cold, disgusted look as he stared at the man

Who had given him nothing but a trust fund and the ability to inflict pain.

Pain that killed not only a mind but a soul.

She pressed her small hands to her husband's stomach,

Panic and fear making her crazy.

Her son simply leaned against the counters, twirling the phone in his hands.

Watching his father die.

The light left his eyes slowly.

She didn't cry, he had never liked it when she cried.

Fairytale blurs danced in her mind as she saw her life with him flash before her eyes.

Pretty in white, walking up to an isle to a man who already smelled of another's perfume.

Living a lie.

And yet she loved him,

Last night's promises, no one ever knew.

Their love was of a different kind

None she'd ever share.

She loved him and that was all that mattered, as he lay there dying

On her perfect marble tiles.

"He's your father,"

She said simply, staring into dimming blue eyes.

"No."

"He loved you,"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you'd never do it."

"I love him. So much."

"No."

With this she broke away from her perfection to look at his clone.

"Yes."

Her son knelt next to her and took her face roughly in his hands.

Smearing her perfect face with her side dish.

"He's not real,"

She closed her eyes at these words, shaking her head.

"I died baby . . . you have to remember."

Her eyes flew open as she heard his voice.

The only one who had ever kept her grounded.

She blinked and reality came back to her.

Her kitchen was empty.

The boy beside her was not her son.

No, only one man had had eyes so blue they made her heart stop.

"I died baby. . please remember. . .on our wedding day. . .I died."

She shook her head at him, blinking rapidly to stop the tears.

"You have to let me go baby. . .but I'll be there. . . when our son needs you no more.

You promised you'd stay, remember?

For everything that I couldn't see."

She only nodded, shaking, ruing her pretty smile with a sad grimace.

"I have to go now. . .I've stayed with you for seventeen years. . . but baby, I have to go."

She stared into his blue depths, seeing the seventeen year old boy she had fallen in love with.

"Mom?"

She looked past her perfection to her seventeen-year-old son, eyes green like a dew drop meadow.

She looked back at her husband and nodded.

"I love you," she whispered as he fades in to her, a muffin sweetness with a side order of blood.

"I love you too Mom,"

And she cried.

Perfection really isn't that pretty is it, when you know all their secrets.


End file.
